NITROGEN AND PHOSPHORUS REMOVAL

The hybrid activated sludge-biofilm system called Integrated Fixed Film Activated Sludge (IFAS) has recently become popular for enhanced nitrification and denitrification in aerobic zones because it is an alternative to increasing the volume of treatment plant units to accomplish year round nitrification and nitrogen removal. Biomass is retained on the fixed-film media and remains in the aerobic reactor, thus increasing the effective mean cell resident time (MCRT) of the biomass and providing the temperature sensitive, slow growing nitrifiers a means of staying in the system when they otherwise would washout. While the utilization of media in aerobic zones to enhance nitrification and denitrification has been the subject of several studies and full-scale experiments, the effects and performances of fixed film media integrated into the anoxic zones of biological nutrient removal (BNR) systems have not adequately been evaluated as well as the impacts of integrated media upon enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR). Also, user-friendly software designed specifically to simulate the complex mixture of biological processes that occur in IFAS systems are not available. The purpose of this research was to more fully investigate the effects of integrated fixed film media on EBPR, to evaluate the impacts of media integrated into the anoxic zone on system performance, and to develop